Poland will enact a temporary ban on asylum applications to “take back control and ensure security” in the country, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Saturday.
“States must regain 100 percent control over who visits and enters Poland,” Prime Minister Tusk said at a convention in Warsaw, the capital of Poland. He said he plans to submit a plan to enact a “cease and desist” measure. Right to asylum.”
The move puts neoliberal leaders at odds with Brussels. Tusk previously served as President of the European Council from 2014 to 2019, during which time he was a key figure in opposition to Brexit. A desire to restore sovereignty over Britain's borders and crack down on large-scale immigration.
Mr Tusk took a sharp turn on Saturday, insisting that his left-liberal Civic Platform government “does not respect European ideas that undermine Poland's security, such as the EU migration deal”. According to to Rzeczpospolita newspaper.
Earlier this year, Brussels pushed through sweeping reforms to asylum rules, including a controversial redistribution plan to disperse potential asylum seekers across the region.
Member states that refuse to accept migrants from other countries will be fined 20,000 euros per person. Countries such as Poland and Hungary spend a lot of money to protect their borders, both have built border fences, and say other EU countries should not be penalized for not protecting their borders. and opposed this measure.
“We will minimize illegal immigration in Poland, eradicate practices that effectively circumvent Polish interests and violate the security of Polish women, Poles and the Polish state. And we will eliminate these practices. “I will,” the Prime Minister vowed.
The prime minister said he needed to counter moves by Russia and its proxy Belarus, which Poland and other Eastern European countries accuse of using illegal immigration as a form of “hybrid warfare” to destabilize the EU. He called for a moratorium on asylum.
In May, Tusk announced the creation of a 200-meter (660-foot) wide “buffer zone” along the Poland-Belarus border after a migrant stabbed a soldier at the border.
In 2021, hundreds of illegal immigrants were arrested on false promises from the authoritarian regime of Alexander Lukashenko, a key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, that they would be given safe passage to Germany after entering the country. Attempts to cross into Poland led to several clashes along the border. Poland.
“We know very well how it is used by Lukashenko, by Putin, by smugglers, smugglers, human traffickers,” Tusk said on Saturday. It's totally against the essence.”
Poland's leader said his government would put an end to the “wave of illegal immigration that has flooded Poland” but was sure to point out that the new restrictions were not intended to demonize all migrants in the country. did.
“This state is for those who want to come to Poland to work honestly, pay taxes, integrate into Polish society and study at a real university. And these are the people who deserve respect.” he said.
The move comes amid a broader trend of enacting border restrictions among European Union countries, including Austria, France, Germany and Norway, as they continue to grapple with the fallout from Islamic terrorism and other mass migration.
